The swimming world will turn its attention to College Station, Texas this week as the SEC Championships for both the men and women will kick off on Wednesday night. The action takes place at the Rec Center Natatorium from Wednesday, February 14th through Sunday, February 18th.

The Florida Gators will be looking to extend their streak with a 6th-straight SEC Championship title, with Caeleb Dressel swimming in his final SEC meet. Dressel swept his individual events last season, winning the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly and putting up some blistering relay splits. They’ve also got defending SEC champion Maxime Rooneyand reigning NCAA champion Mark Szaranek, among several other returning medalists on the roster.

While the Gators look very tough to beat, we could see the top 5 getting shaken up a bit. Georgia and Auburn lost a few key players to graduation with the likes of Kalisz, Clark, Duderstadt, Patching, and Darmody now gone, but a few freshman (namely Auburn’s Hugo Gonzalez and Georgia’s Camden Murphy) could step up and bring in a lot of points. Tennessee, Alabama, Texas A&M, and South Carolina will look to challenge for one of the top spots. With Alabama’s sprint group looking strong, they could break into the top 3.

SCHEDULE

The SEC is the only major conference to use the 5-day meet format, which spreads events out and should prevent too many swimmers from running into tough doubles. The event lineup is listed below:

Florida – Caeleb Dressel (senior sprinter), Mark Szaranek (senior IMer), Jan Switkowski(senior fly/IMer), Maxime Rooney(sophomore freestyler), Khader Baqlah (sophomore freestyler), Michael Taylor(freshman backstroker) – This will be Dressel’s final SEC meet. He’s the heavy favorite to defend his titles in the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly if he chooses to swim those events, but could potentially shake up his schedule after his blistering 200 IM at midseason.

Georgia – Jay Litherland(senior IMer/freestyler), Gunnar Bentz (senior IMer/flyer), Javier Acevedo (sophomore free/backstroker), James Guest (junior breaststroker), Walker Higgins(sophomore freestyler), Camden Murphy(freshman butterflier) – Bentz is a bit of a question mark this season. He’s Georgia’s top returning scorer, but was out of competition for most of the season with a collarbone injury despite returning to training shortly after.

Kentucky – Sebastian Masterton (junior diver), Isaac Jones (senior freestyler) – Kentucky graduated a handful of its top swimmers after last season, but Jones returns after picking up big points in the distance freestyles.

SHOWDOWNS:

400 IM- The 400 IM should be a good one, with last season’s runner-up Mark Szaranek of Florida headlining the event. There to challenge will be Georgia’s Jay Litherland andGunnar Bentz, who are both All-Americans in this race. Auburn freshman Hugo Gonzalez could also challenge for the win.

100 Breast– Tennessee’s Peter Stevens has some serious speed, but he’s up against 2017 runner-up Nils Wich-Glasen of South Carolina. Texas A&M’s Mauro Castillo Luna has a chance to be right there with them. Florida’s Chandler Bray returns after finaling last season.

200 Back- Defending champion Chris Reid will battle with Auburn freshman Hugo Gonzalez here. Both Reid and Gonzalez have best times in the 1:39-range. Florida freshman Michael Taylor, an Olympic Trials finalist, is another one to look out for. Georgia’s Jay Litherland and Texas A&M’s Brock Bonetti return after making the final last season.

200 Fly– We could see a good battle here between Georgia All-American Gunnar Bentz and returning medalists Jan Switkowski and Mark Szaranek of Florida. Hugo Morris, the 2016 SEC champ in this race, returns for Auburn. South Carolina’s Fynn Minuth and Georgia’s Mick Litherland are also returning finalists.

SELECTIONS

Our Swimulator tool (reminder – doesn’t include diving) would have Florida winning this meet by about 120 points over Georgia. That won’t take into account Gunnar Bentz, however, who wouldn’t have much of an impact on Swimulator’s rankings, but should at the meet (even if he’s had only a truncated season after breaking his collarbone early in the year). Georgia can also expect more from their divers than Florida can. Is it enough to close the gap? We think a riot might break out if we picked against Caeleb Dressel – and we won’t – but data points to this meet coming down to the last day, depending on how tapers go.

Georgia depth will be the key. An interesting fact – if you Swimulate the meet scoring to 24 places (which is how the meet is scored), Georgia ranks 2nd. If you Swimulate it to 16 places, Georgia falls to 4th. That means that the middle-of-the-lineup Bulldogs will have to come through big for them to upset Florida.

There’s another interesting battle for the 3rd-8th positions as well. South Carolina has a few studs and a chance at a top-10 finish at NCAAs, but the depth hasn’t quite arrived for the rising program The same could be said for the Texas A&M Aggies, though A&M has a better diving corps with the likes of defending conference 3-meter champion Tyler Henschel.

Missouri is not the 8th-best team in the conference – however, as is well-known by now, they go after cuts mid-season, and then fully train through the conference like almost no other team in the country does. For example, last year, they were seeded to win SECs, but only came out 5th.

Tennessee, Auburn, and Alabama are all pretty even in swimming, especially with Alabama’s Robert Howard, Tennessee’s Kyle Decoursey, and Auburn’s Zach Apple all emerging as a true national sprint threats (Howard is the fastest 100 freestyler in the conference this year in 41.99 – yes, faster than Dressel). If the tie-breaker is diving, then Tennessee has it in spades. Between Liam Stone and Ohio State transfer Colin Zheng, they have two NCAA diving champions on their roster. Tennessee’s swimming roster might not have some of the name recognition as other SEC teams (or past Tennessee teams, for that matter), they have a lot of guys who have flown under-the-radar to top 1 or 2 seeds at SECs. Where they lock that top-end star (backstroke), they make up for it with a lot of depth (4 guys in the top 13 of the 200 back, including #4 Sam McHugh).

As a former SEC swimmer, there are definitely some guys who take online classes to lighten the load a little bit. However, most of my team were engineering or pre-med. Missing that entire week of class was always brutal.

About Lauren Neidigh

Lauren Neidigh is a former NCAA swimmer at the University of Arizona and the University of Florida. She got her M.S. in Criminology from Florida State and seems exceptionally confused about which team she should cheer for during the college football season. Lauren is currently working on her M.A. in …